A river runs wild. Make that two. How do you say "dam(n) it" in Chinese?

This is a post that will find fault with the Chinese government, criticize the uber-prioritization of economic growth, and favor the natural environment.  A holy trifecta of a bait for this guy;)

A wild and crazy duo; no, not that kind.
Wild and crazy rivers, that is. 

Two of the continent’s wildest rivers have their sources in Tibet: the Salween and the Brahmaputra.

Are you thinking what I am thinking?  Exactly!
The Salween?
Wikipedia notes that it is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the world, at 1,749 miles.  And its name in Chinese translates to "the angry river."  Looks like the Brahmaputra is a tame one compared to the Salween!

Notice the source for these two?  Tibet.  Uh oh!

The occupied Tibet + rivers with untapped potential + need for energy + communist capitalism = yes, that's where that op-ed is going.

Though they are under threat from retreating glaciers, a more immediate concern is Chinese engineering plans. A cascade of five large dams is planned for both the Salween, which now flows freely, and the Brahmaputra, where one dam is already operational.

Now, keep in mind that China's voracious appetite for energy means that it already "has more than 26,000 large dams, more than the rest of the world combined."  More than the rest of the world combined.  Re-read that and take a deep breath.  We've just begun!  What are the issues here?

• Damming and diverting waters with impacts on the ecosystem
• Damming and diverting waters affecting countries downstream
• No benefit to the people of Tibet--energy exported to the east
• Local Tibetans displaced and the “ecological refugees” are shunted into ghettos."

I have merely summarized the key points.  The details in the op-ed are not pretty.

So, can anything be done at all?

The solution to these complex problems is simple: Since these enormous projects are state-run and state-financed, China’s leaders can cancel them at will.

Fat chance of that ever happening!

I was confident that commentators in India would have written in plenty in this context.  Of the few that I scanned through, I liked this take, which ends thus:

In a letter dated 4 December 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Bertrand Russell: “We do not want to do something which will endanger our planet. I do think, however, that there will be a greater danger of that kind if we surrender to the Chinese and they feel that the policy they have pursued brings them rich dividends”.
More than 50 years later, it is fervently to be hoped that better sense will prevail in China, and the lives of millions of people of the subcontinent will not be endangered by killing the river Brahmaputra. 

I tell ya, we better get on to that energiewende fast.

Buddhists Ablaze ... Buddha Bombed ... WTF!

Sometimes, not very often, students ask me how I manage to talk and write about so many different things.  I tell them it is because I have no life, which never fails to make them smile.  Unlike me, most Americans know how to smile, and they smile well.

The real answer to their question is that I lucked out.  Right from the earliest years I can remember, I have been reading any damn thing within my sight.  If bored with nothing to read, I am one of those who will even read the nutritional information on a cereal box!  I joke that I go the dentist only because I get to read People magazine there.

Reading, or watching videos in this modern setting, is also a curse, sometimes.

If only I had let that New Yorker gift-subscription expire!  , But, of course, I didn't.  Thus, the issues keep coming, and I keep reading them.  Yes, there are funny cartoons there, but not every essay and short story in the magazine is mood-uplifting.

Last night, it was an essay on Tibetans setting themselves on fire (sub. reqd.) that I read.  A depressing essay.  I don't avoid those depressing pieces, but I read them.  As I recently remarked to a friend, life is not simply about laughter and partying alone--not that I party either!

I would imagine that dying by burning oneself will be one of the most painful ways to die, if not the most painful one.  A few years ago, when my experiment in the kitchen resulted in the oil exploding and hot oil falling on my forearm, that was painful enough for me.  The inch-long scar that resulted reminds me to be ultra-careful in the kitchen.  That was one tiny part of my body.  And here we have Tibetans setting their entire bodies on fire.  Entire bodies!  Voluntarily!  Like this twenty-year old, back in January!

In the past two years, well over a hundred Tibetans have immolated themselves in protest against the Chinese rule.  The demonstrations have spread across the Tibetan plateau, both in Chinese provinces with significant Tibetan populations--Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu--and in the Tibet Autonomous Region.  In 2011, a dozen Tibetans set themselves ablaze--most of them monks or former monks of Kirti Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Sichuan.  Last year, more than eighty Tibetans--monks and nuns, farmers, nomads, students, restaurant workers, and at least one writer--burned to death.  The oldest was in his early sixties; the youngest was just fifteen.

How terrible!  Just awful!

Now, I don't ever imagine that every single person in Tibet is a Buddhist monk or a devout Buddhist.  As Brandon O'Neill noted a couple of years ago, there are plenty of regular Tibetans who love to wear cowboy hats and ride motorbikes too.  But, it is not right when Tibetans are prevented from deciding for themselves what they would like to do.

The self-immolation is "a sacrifice for a higher cause."

Many demand freedom, including religious freedom and the protection of Tibetan culture and language; others call more specifically for independence.  The most common sentiment is an appeal for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet.

As Tsering Tashi was ablaze:

He is suffering death by putting his whole body onfire, and he's still calling out His Holiness the Dalai Lama's name.

I am no fan of religions, and nor am I a fan of any particular religious leader.  But, isn't it up to the individual people themselves to decide what ideas they would like to practice?  Repressing that liberty, which then leads to such terrible loss of lives, is surely a crime that the Chinese government cannot dismiss as mere propaganda, can it?

Meanwhile, in the place where the Buddha became the enlightened one, bombs exploded:

Four blasts took place inside the temple complex, three in a neighbouring monastery, and one each near a Buddha statue and a bus stand, Bihar police officials said on Sunday. 

The Hindu adds:

Based on a bag found in the temple premises, the police detained Vinod Mistri, resident of the Barachatti block in Gaya. “Vinod was picked up based on certain information. His photo identity card was found in the temple premises,” Abhayanand, Director General of Police, told reporters here. Deputy Inspector General of Police Nayyar Hasnain Khan told The Hindu that Vinod is a carpenter who made small furniture. 

The bag found contained a monk’s robe, a piece of paper with some mobile numbers, medical papers and a voter identity card belonging to Vinod. “He is not a monk. So the NIA is investigating why he was carrying the robe,” a police source told The Hindu.

If only we all knew how to get along, despite our differences!

On a war that didn't happen, and a war that did, in 1962

October 1962 might remind at least a few Americans of the Cuban missile crisis, which, during the Cold War, pushed the world that much closer to a nuclear armageddon that was, thankfully, averted. At the same time, on the other side of the planet, while nuclear bombs were not involved, two other heavyweights—India and China—did go to war over a number of difficult and unresolved geopolitical issues, which continue to dog them even today.

The short war in 1962, which was disastrous for India, did not resolve these border disputes.  Both India and China continue to claim the northern Himalayan territory of Aksai Chin as theirs, though it is completely under China’s rule now. All the way across, India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by China as South Tibet. In addition, the Dalai Lama’s government in exile in India is a reminder of the complications over Tibet.

There is an important reason why these two countries have not waged any more wars in order to plant their respective flags on the other’s lands—they are busy with economic growth and development. Since the late 1970s, China has been on an accelerated path of economic growth, and India has been trying to catch up with its own liberalized policies a decade after China’s reforms began. The two countries are perhaps examples of how much the war chants decrease in volume when there is a healthy and growing trade in goods and services.

The background noise over the unresolved border issues, how much ever it might be muted now, mean that the economic and diplomatic relations between India and China will be of importance not only to the more than two billion people there but to the entire world. The slow thawing of relations between India and Pakistan, which have been characterized by a belligerent sibling rivalry ever since their independence from Britain in 1947, will further enhance the importance of that part of the world.

The United States appears to be recognizing these developments and, in the language of policymakers, is pivoting towards Asia, and China in particular. This is a contrast to the practice during the bad old days of the Cold War, when the focus was on Western Europe, and how to make strategic friendships with the satellite countries. Thus, the non‐aligned India and the communist China were viewed with suspicion then. After the fall of the Soviet Union, which ended the Cold War, it was perhaps only natural that the United States pivoted towards Asia.

I am worried, however, that we are increasingly focused on China for all the wrong reasons. We seem to be interested in the happenings there not because we want to be where the party is going on, but more because we want to make sure that we can quickly checkmate China, which has unresolved territorial disputes with many countries from Russia and Japan in the north down to the Philippines and Vietnam. These geopolitical issues are not anything new, but are carryovers from centuries of China’s dominance when it was an empire and a superpower.

Both the presidential candidates appear to be intent on escalating tensions. Their rhetoric makes it clear that neither one wants to come across as being wimpier than the other when it comes to dealing with China. Further, China seems to be a convenient scapegoat on which the candidates prefer to pin the blame for our economic stagnation, conveniently forgetting to acknowledge how much our own disastrous policies—like the loosened regulations that encouraged bankers to take wild risks—contributed to the Great Recession. If China had a minimal role in causing the Great Recession, one would think that China is not the reason why we continue to be in a funk either, and yet we beat up on our important trading partner more than even going after the rogue bankers!

Political theorists often point out that governments distract their peoples by pointing at enemies, mostly imaginary, on the other side of the border. I hope this is not what our pivot to Asia implies. As India and China have demonstrated to the rest of the world over the fifty years since their only war, disputes might linger, yes, but we can learn to live together.

China is second largest economy. So, ...?

I play bridge online (for free, through BridgeBase) and rarely are even two of the four hands around the table American.  Once, a few days ago, to my right was a player from Greece.  After a few games, he informed the table that he was leaving, to go for a swim.  A fellow player then chimed in that Greece is so beautiful, to which the Greek replied that it was the most beautiful country in the world and that he knows because he has been to 36 countries.

I chuckled away thinking that in Europe it is quite easy to drive a couple of hundred kilometers and be in another country!  Here in the US, driving north from San Diego, it will take about 800 miles to even get to another state within the same country.  (Ahem, that is about 1300 kilometers!  So, having traveled 36 countries doesn't say any damn thing.
 
China is one bloody huge country--it ought to be viewed as a continent.  And it has the population too to be a continent.  After all, China as one single country has a population that exceeds the combined population of all the European countries together.

So, when the world's press announces with great drama that China has overtaken Japan to become the second largest economy in the world, yes, it is commendable that China has progressed a lot.  But, even for a moment did the media pause to consider, for instance, Japan's population is just about a tenth of China's?   

Why is then that China's economy captures our attention so much?

One is a very simple reason--over the years, China's Communist leaders have preferred to use a good chunk of the generated wealth to loan to America.  And now, China is locked into it, and has no choice but to keep this going.  As Larry Summers described it a long time, this is the Mutually Assured Destruction in the post-Cold War era.

The American interest in the Chinese economic story comes, I think, with this in mind.  For Europeans, it is more about environmental impacts, and human rights (or lack thereof) in China.

India is not far behind--as a continent, similar to China.  But is a lot poorer; when Europe was clawing its way out of its Dark Ages, India might have been way more advanced compared to the rest of the world.  "The twin stories of India and China are the most dramatic in the world economy. In 1820, the two countries contributed to nearly half of the world's income. In 1950, their share was less than a tenth"  Now, it is one poor country, where about every third Indian is poor.  The fact that these two continents countries now have some of the highest economic growth rates doesn't surprise me nor worry me.

What does worry me is the uneasy tension that lies under the surface in the relationship between these two countries.  As the Economist points out,

China and India are in many ways rivals, not Asian brothers, and their relationship is by any standard vexed—as recent quarrelling has made abundantly plain. If you then consider that they are, despite their mutual good wishes, old enemies, bad neighbours and nuclear powers, and have two of the world’s biggest armies—with almost 4m troops between them—this may seem troubling.

One scenario that has always been of concern to me is this: so far, the Communist Party has managed to keep a tight hold on the political aspects, while freeing up a lot on the economic front.  But, what if the pressure builds up to an extent that it threatens the very hold of the party?  The contested territory could then become an ideal relief valve for China--hey, nothing holds a country together and legitimizes a government's power like a foreign war!

The basic problem is twofold. In the undefined northern part of the frontier India claims an area the size of Switzerland, occupied by China, for its region of Ladakh. In the eastern part, China claims an Indian-occupied area three times bigger, including most of Arunachal. This 890km stretch of frontier was settled in 1914 by the governments of Britain and Tibet, which was then in effect independent, and named the McMahon Line after its creator, Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British-ruled India. For China—which was afforded mere observer status at the negotiations preceding the agreement—the McMahon Line represents a dire humiliation.

China also particularly resents being deprived of Tawang, which—though south of the McMahon Line—was occupied by Indian troops only in 1951, shortly after China’s new Communist rulers dispatched troops to Tibet. This district of almost 40,000 people, scattered over 2,000 square kilometres of valley and high mountains, was the birthplace in the 17th century of the sixth Dalai Lama (the incumbent incarnation is the 14th). Tawang is a centre of Tibet’s Buddhist culture, with one of the biggest Tibetan monasteries outside Lhasa. Traditionally, its ethnic Monpa inhabitants offered fealty to Tibet’s rulers—which those aged peasants around Tawang also remember. “The Tibetans came for money and did nothing for us,” said Mr Nansey, referring to the fur-cloaked Tibetan officials who until the late 1940s went from village to village extracting a share of the harvest.

Making matters worse, the McMahon Line was drawn with a fat nib, establishing a ten-kilometre margin for error, and it has never been demarcated. With more confusion in the central sector, bordering India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, there are in all a dozen stretches of frontier where neither side knows where even the disputed border should be. In these “pockets”, as they are called, Indian and Chinese border guards circle each other endlessly while littering the Himalayan hillsides—as dogs mark lampposts—to make their presence known.

I suppose my grandmother said it best when we were kids and when we complained about somebody else getting a larger portion (we perceived it thus).  Grandma always then directed us to simply focus on our own plates and finish what was served.  Similarly, we will be much better off worrying about our own internal problems--which we have in plenty--than to point to China's or India's economic growth rates.

The Dalai Lama Dilemma

I can't figure out this Tibet stuff.

I mean, yes, the Chinese were awful and brutal in the 1950s that led to large-scale ethnic cleansing of sorts with the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of his followers fleeing Lhasa and its vicinity.  And, yes, the suppression of a basic freedom to believe in whatever one wants to is a gross violation of human rights.  I written about these (like this one) and have blogged a lot as well.

But, on the other hand, I have always wondered whether we are idealizing Tibet, the Tibetan life, and overly glorifying the Dalai Lama.  After all, there is a long track record of Western countries celebrating the simple lifestyles of the poor, when many of that same poor would way prefer not to be poor and starving and ill and illiterate ....

The ever contrarian Spiked makes it all the more difficult to figure this out:

The first sounds that greet me as I arrive in Lhasa are the incandescent honking of horns as car-drivers and motorcyclists (some with three to a bike) negotiate the roads. My own Tibetan driver is wearing a Playboy jacket. Maybe he bought it in the Playboy shop that I later see in the centre of Lhasa. It’s near the Tibet Steak House (‘juicy meat for you!’) and the Lhasa casino, in which Tibetan men in leather jackets pile coins into slot machines. On the streets young men in Kappa and Nike sweatshirts (fakes, I’m guessing), with hair by Topman, flirt with casually dressed young women, one of whom is sporting hotpants that even Kylie would consider too risqué. How can they dress like this in the freezing kingdom of snow and Yetis, as made famous by Tintin in Tibet? Because that’s another myth of Tibet, at least in July, and at least here in Lhasa: I might be 3,650 metres above sea level, inside a mountain range and with the clouds so close by I almost feel I could touch them, but it’s so hot that I get sunburnt.

Of course, one could argue that the dreaded hotpants would not have been there, and the Shangri-La would have continued, had the Chinese government not interfered in Tibet the way it did and continues to do.  But, what if all that Shangri-La talk itself is a myth?

it is during that period of the self-serving Orientalism of British rule in Tibet that the popular modern image of Tibet as a mystical, cut-off entity takes shape - most notably in James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1933), which invented the idea of ‘Shangri La’. As McKay points out, the writings of the British imperialists, and of their sympathisers, are still regularly cited in the propaganda produced by the Dalai Lama’s people, which is designed to prove that Tibet is a unique and special place that only they can and should govern. Some of those old Orientalist writings were available at that hippy-fest in Lambeth, too - British imperial paternalism recycled as anthropological New Age ‘at-oneness’. What connects the old imperialists with the new Tibetophiles is their desire to have Tibet as a ‘buffer state’ – only where the imperialists wanted to use Tibet to protect their material interests against China and Russia, the new lot want to use it to protect their emotional interests, to preserve an idea of innocent, childlike humanity so far uncorrupted by modernity.

Reminds me of that controversial book on Orientalism from my graduate school days.  Speaking of which, Rongsheng, who was a fellow graduate student, always argued that the Chinese government was trying to get rid of feudal traditions and ignorance in Tibet, and that the West was keen on maintaining those horrible systems that do not help the Tibetans themselves.

I suppose the only way I can figure this out for myself is to travel in and around Tibet.  Will you, the reader, please pay for this important educational trip? Please? :)

Meanwhile, the Economist dryly notes that:

China seems to calculate that the eventual death of the Dalai Lama, a charismatic and internationally popular figure, will make its job in Tibet easier. Each passing birthday brings that day closer. But it also offers supporters of the Dalai Lama and his cause a chance to sing his praises.

That is some realpolitik, eh.

A Canadian Univ honors the Dalai Lama. So, China bans the univ.

The White House kowtowing to China over the Tibet/Dalai Lama issue is not anything new.  And with the strained Sino-US relations--recently over Taiwan, the currency, Iran's nukes--, I suppose China sees an opportunity to up its rhetoric.
But, to aim its guns at a university?  And that too in Canada? Over the university honoring the Dalai Lama?  Yep,  that is what happened:

China has taken the University of Calgary off its list of accredited universities, most likely because it gave the Dalai Lama an honorary degree last September when he visited Calgary, according to the Calgary Herald. The university has about 600 students from China and is trying to find out what the sanction means for graduates who are back in China, as well as for current students. ... The Tibetan spiritual leader did not go to the campus but received the degree at the start of a conference in the city.

The Dalai Lama: next stop White House? :-)

In an opinion column a few weeks ago, I wrote about two trips that the Dalai Lama had on his calendar: the visit to the White House to meet with President Obama, which was nixed by the President, and the visit to to Tawang.  I wondered whether the Tawang visit will happen, given how China was clearly unhappy that the "splittist" was heading to a "disputed territory" ....

For once, a good update: the visit happened. 

Now, let us see what Obama will do :-)

More on Obama blowing off the Dalai Lama

Way back, on September 22nd, the Register Guard published my column on President Obama blowing off his meeting with the Dalai Lama--well, making sure he would not meet the Tibetan leader until after the first official presidential visit to China.

It is turning out that with increasing frequency Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are echoing my columns and blogs; good for them :-)  Well, here is Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver dissecting Obama's decision--nothing that is inconsistent with my column either .....

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Hell No, Dalai
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Temperature rises between India and China

If there was any doubt that I was on the wrong track in my column on the developing geopolitical complexities between China and India, well, erase that thought!
According to this report, China has treated Indian citizens from Kashmir differently from how it treats Indian citizens from the rest of India. 

the Chinese embassy in New Delhi has begun issuing visas to Indian passport holders from Jammu and Kashmir on a separate sheet of paper rather than stamping them in their passports as is the norm with other Indian citizens.  “What the Chinese are doing is definitely new and we have taken a serious view of it,” an MEA official said

Cue that Twilight Zone music!

Realpolitik over principles :-(

Not that the people at Foreign Policy read my op-ed on Obama blowing off meeting with the Dalai Lama,but they do have a response to my column: "get real".  Wen Liao writes:

in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, and given China's vastly increased importance to global economic stability, the Obama administration must recognize China's enlarged role in international decision-making. Antagonizing China's government over Tibet is no way to get it to act responsibly, whether on economic issues or on climate change. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled her recognition of this reality earlier this year when, on her first visit to China, she deliberately avoided the issue of human rights in Tibet.

And, you know what Liao recommends that the Dalai Lama do?

If the Dalai Lama is to be taken seriously by China as a negotiating partner, in fact, he must emulate President Obama and learn realpolitik. 

Aaw, thanks for the advice!

Obama’s meeting with Dalia Lama is off for now

The time and energy wasted on non-issues such as whether the president forged his birth certificate makes us oblivious to flashing signals, some more urgent than others, from around the world.

Case in point: the remarkably under-reported news that President Obama has “quietly postponed an audience with the Dalai Lama until after he visits China in November.”

The Chicago Sun Times — the president’s hometown newspaper — notes that “White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrettt, who seemed to vanish at the end of last week, was actually dispatched to India on a delicate diplomatic mission: President Obama tapped her to meet with the exiled Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai Lama.”

Even the vice president’s visits to Iraq appear to be more transparent!

The postponement of the meeting confirms, yet again, the triumph of realpolitik over principles.

When we owe China more than $800 billion, perhaps we have no option other than to make sure that we do not upset our primary foreign lender.

However, the postponement is not without geopolitical complexities involving the United States, China and India.

Sino-Indian relations, which had been improving in the 1990s, have been on a downturn over the past couple of years.

The downturn has even resulted in very brief military incidents. One of the main sore points is over Arunachal Pradesh, a state in northeastern India. China has always claimed Arunachal Pradesh as its territory and considers it a part of Tibet.

The territorial boundary that China disputes — the MacMahon Line — dates back to 1914, before the independence of India and before the founding of the China we know today.

India became independent of Britain in 1947, and the People’s Republic of China came into existence in 1949. It can be argued that neither India nor China was party to the MacMahon Line, but both have been forced to coexist with that boundary in the rugged Himalayan terrain.

So, where does the Dalai Lama fit into this territorial dispute, even when he is in no way directly responsible for the recent tiffs between these two countries?

For one, the Dalai Lama has lived in northern India — in Dharmasala — ever since he fled Lhasa, Tibet, in 1959. The Dalai Lama’s escape path out of Lhasa went through Tawang, which is in Arunachal Pradesh and whose monastery is the second oldest after Lhasa’s.

A few years after his arrival in India, the Dalai Lama was requested by the Tawang Monastery to send a lama who would be qualified to be the abbot, and this further cemented his association with Tawang.

In 2008, when the Dalai Lama planned to visit Tawang, the Indian government prevented him from doing so because it did not want to upset the Chinese government, which considers this trip a political act by the “splittist” Dalai Lama.

This year, however, the Indian government has approved the Dalai Lama’s plans to visit Tawang in November, perhaps sensing that continuing to appease the Chinese government might be interpreted as a sign of weakness and could cloud its sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, there have been reports of Chinese military incursions into Indian territories.

All of these things have concerned the Indian government so much that the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, was compelled to react, and promptly accused the media of blowing things out of proportion.

It was against such intense geopolitical backdrop that the Dalai Lama was scheduled to meet with Obama during the Dalai Lama’s visit to the United States in October. This meeting is now a no-go.

Of course, the story continues. In mid-November, Obama is scheduled to go to China on his first official visit, which is, ironically, about the same time as the Dalai Lama’s fifth visit to Tawang.

However, unlike the president, the Dalai Lama is not quite in control of his own calendar.

Buddhists — monks and laypeople alike — in India’s northeastern states have begun special prayers hoping that these would ensure the Dalai Lama’s visit.

Let us see if the prayers bear fruit. And, maybe, the Dalai Lama will even get to meet with Obama at the White House.

For The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Wednesday, Sep 23, 2009

Quote of the day

For all its diplomatic bluster, Russia is little more than a cantankerous geopolitical gas station, and China is sparing no effort to take direct control of Siberian oil and gas through aggressive corporate buy-ins. Only if Russia wakes up to this reality and turns to the west will the real Nato—and therefore the west—have access to central Asia, let alone the capability to compete with China.

Read the entire essay by Parag Khanna

Uyghurs in Guantanamo

A wonderful aspect of teaching is that it is a version of “life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you’re gonna get.”  The latest was when students introduced themselves in one of my classes, and one student said that her off-beat name reflects her Uyghur heritage. 

When I, from a land of a billion people, am a rare ethnic representative on campus, a Uyghur student at our university was beyond my wildest imagination.  So, naturally excited am I!

Up until this term, the Uyghurs (also spelt Uighurs) had been only an academic concept to me ever since reading about Muslims in China, in the far western province of Xinjiang.  Not anymore—I am now able to identify this academic concept with a real person. 

As a graduate student many years ago, one of the first things I did upon reading about the Uyghurs was to play my favorite game in such contexts, which is to establish a connection to India!  It turned out that it was not a difficult process at all, and it did not involve very many degrees of separation. 

In the English language, we use a word "mogul" when we refer to highly powerful businessmen.  Well, this word reflects the powerful and influential "Mughal Empire" that ruled over a large part of the Indian subcontinent, until it was replaced by the British. 

The Mughal dynasty began in 1526, when Babur defeated the reigning sultan in Delhi. The empire had some of its glorious years under Akbar and Shah Jahan--it was Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal.  Babur descended from Timur (also known as Tamerlane), who was Turkic, with some Mongol heritage. The Uyghurs also speak a Turkic language.  Aha, I had linked up the Uyghurs to India!

But, I was not happy once I understood that the Uyghurs were pretty much in the same situation that the Tibetans are, and fear the loss of language, culture, and traditions under the heavy-handed rule of the Chinese government. 

A reader might wonder why we should care about some eight million or so Uyghurs in a remote part of China.  Well, we in the US have even fewer degrees of separation, through a direct and controversial connection—Guantanamo. 

Soon after the US and NATO forces liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban regime, the US picked up a number of people while sweeping the area for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.  In the process, we apparently also picked up a few Uyghurs who happened to be in that area.  Their presence in Afghanistan is not that difficult to imagine, given that Xinjiang is so much out in the west of China that its borders abut Afghanistantoo. 

Designated as enemy combatants, these Uyghurs were confined to Guantanamo.  However, as it became clear that the Uyghurs were not involved with any militant activity directed against the US, five of them were released from Guantanamo.  But, they did not want to be sent back toChina out of a fear that they might be tortured there.  No other country offered to take them either, except Albania, which is they are since their release in 2006.  What a strange story of globalization! 

Meanwhile, another fifteen of the remaining seventeen Uyghurs in Guantanamo have been cleared for release, but more than a hundred countries contacted by the US have refused to take them.  While Uyghur families in the US have offered to house and help rehabilitate them, our government is not in favor of fifteen Guantanamo alums living within our borders. 

The status of the Uyghurs in Guantanamo will soon have to be addressed by the Obama administration.  The fundamental issue though is the Chinese government that continues with its policies of denying rights, particularly to minorities.  The Tibetan story is all too familiar to us; the situation in which the Uyghur are trapped in is very similar, which is why it is also referred to as China’s other Tibet problem. 

The slide from Timur’s expansive empire, which provided an environment for Turkic culture to flourish, to having a few of their people locked up inGuantanamo, has been quite a tragic tale for the Uyghur people.  I suppose life is not always a box of good chocolates.